Electrical Power & Protection


Preventative maintenance strategy for surge arrestors

February 2016 Electrical Power & Protection

Test Instruments Africa (TIA) has announced the launch of the SA 30i, a leakage current meter from Scope. It’s a state-of-the-art online test system for residual life assessment of surge arresters. The instrument measures and directly displays the values of resistive and total leakage current.

The instrument can be preloaded with the identity (asset number, make, year, serial number etc.) and tests conducted on the same relevant arresters each saved in its own folder. Trend analysis software, Sadata, picks up this data and files it in a similar fashion on a PC. This analysis software enables the user to take a decision to repair or replace the arresters, while considering safety limits. The SA 30i is designed to work under the hostile electrostatic noise found in live EHV switchyards. Other features include:

• Measures 3rd harmonic resistive current with system harmonic compensation, plus the total leakage current.

• In-built temperature measurement facility enables calculation of temperature compensated leakage currents.

• Date and time stamp on test data.

• Results are displayed on LCD, printed on optionally supplied thermal printer and can be stored in the in-built memory of the instrument. 1000 test records can be stored.

• Powered by easily available re-chargeable SLA batteries. It works for a day’s testing needs on a single charge.

• Built-in standard calibration source and self-calibration check facility.

• Serial communication port (USB) to transfer data to PC and Windows based data management software.

The measurement

A special low-noise clamp-on CT is used to read leakage current in the earth conductor of the arrester. The field probe is a non-contact, remote sensing device employed to take the reference signal from the HV line to the arrester, for measurement of phase and system harmonics.

The SA 30i measures 3rd harmonic resistive and total leakage current by compensating the harmonics present in the system as per IEC 60099-5 B2 or without system harmonic compensation as per IEC 60099-5 B1.



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